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Old August 15th 03, 03:10 AM
Gene Goldenfeld
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Default LT Training for Lance, Why Not Nordic Skiers?

Douglas Diehl wrote:

Last fall many R.S.N. readers discussed LT training, but many issues seem
unanswered. From reading training records for Lance Armstrong, it is
apparent LT training (training slightly below or at the Anaerobic Threshold)
is the core of his fitness program. Several workouts per week are designed
to influence his LT. Apparently this from of training is very successful for
him. However, elite Nordic ski racers concentrate more on long aerobic
workouts with high end level 4 intervals in late summer and fall. Why is it
these Scandinavian athletes are avoiding several LT workouts per week and
are so successful. Of course the obvious is they have extremely high V02's,
but they still look for the best training methods. Any insight from you
sport physiology people would be appreciated.



Doug, on the face of it you seem to be treating two different concepts as
one here; i.e., "influencing one's LT," which can be done in any number of
ways, including running just under one's lactate balance point -- usually
20-30 beats below LT -- for a couple of hours, with doing a number of "high
end Level 4" workouts a week, which would presumably be quite taxing. How
it works exactly with cycling training I don't know, but presumably Lance
and others are doing a lot of long distance, getting volume, as well as
intensity sessions. In any event, I've dropped in here a NY Times article
from July 2002 about Lance's training.

Gene
-----------------------
Unyielding Training Gives Armstrong His Edge

By SAMUEL ABT

EVRY, France, July 28 — Lance Armstrong has a favorite comeback to
people who wonder how he can climb the Alps and the Pyrenees so
rapidly in the Tour de France without looking strained. "You should
see my face in January or February," he said. "It's not a pretty
face."

At that time, Armstrong, the Tour champion, is training, not
racing. At most times, in fact, he is training, not racing —
Armstrong is one of the rare riders who prefers to go out on his
bicycle day in, day out rather than upgrade his form in races.

"I train every day," he said in an interview as he sat in his
United States Postal Service team bus before a daily stage this
week and discussed his year-round preparation for the race he calls
his major objective.

"I never miss a day of training. Never," he said with emphasis.

The primary purpose, he continued, is to raise his aerobic
threshold, the point where he begins building up the weary lactic
acid in his muscles. Reluctant to go into the details of his
training regimen and hesitant about giving away trade secrets, both
Armstrong and his coach, Chris Carmichael, said that aerobic
training was what set Armstrong apart from the other riders.
Armstrong remained comfortably ahead today after finishing 29th in
the stage from Orleans to Evry, leading Jan Ullrich, a German with
Telekom, by 6 minutes 44 seconds and Joseba Beloki, a Spaniard with
ONCE, by 9:05.

Armstrong said he trains predominantly uphill, near Nice, where he
has a home. "It's a way to escape the traffic," Armstrong said. "I
do a lot of specific work, no really intense work. It's all
subthreshold.

"If this is your threshold," he continued, moving an envelope on
the table toward him, "the purpose is to push your threshold up and
I believe the only way to push it up is to train below it. If you
train above it, ultimately you're going to push the threshold
down," he said, moving the envelope toward him.

He said that his training lasted "anywhere from two to eight hours
daily" and was a mixture of work on the road and in the gym, the
latter occurring mainly during the winter at home in Austin, Tex.
Armstrong spends an hour a day, three times a week, in the gym, he
explained.

"I do a little bit of gym work, no upper body work, but lower body
work, abdominal stuff, lower back stuff.

"No swimming," he added, even though he was a crack swimmer as a
youth and a triathlete afterward. "I'd like to swim but if I did I
would immediately bulk up. I have that reaction to exercise like
that."

Joking with teammates in the bus and gazing out its one-way-vision
windows to watch the passing crowd, Armstrong summed up his
climbing skills: "You have to have a basic gift and then it's how
you work with that gift, how you shape it, the work that you do,
the intensity you do it in and then the motivation for the race.
I'm very motivated for this race. It's everything."

Carmichael, Armstrong's coach for a decade, filled in some blanks
later.

"We have five training components that are manipulated on a daily
basis," said Carmichael, who directs Carmichael Training Systems
for amateur and professional riders in the United States. "They are
the train he's riding on," said Carmichael, referring to the gears
used, "the intensity as measured by heart rate, pedal cadence,
frequencies — how many intervals he does — and volume as measured
in hours."

Carmichael said the intervals can be "four 20-minute blocks at a
182 to 184 heart rate. In between the intervals, it's easy
pedaling."

He echoed Armstrong's reliance on aerobic threshold training.

"That's when you produce energy in the presence of oxygen and
you're burning two primary fuels, fat and carbohydrates,"
Carmichael explained. He added that during anaerobic training,
activity done without supplying oxygen to the muscles, the fuel
burned is glycogen, a carbohydrate the body stores.

"You only have a certain amount of that in you," he said. "And the
negative byproduct of anaerobically produced work is lactic acid,
which slows you down and creates the burn. Work that's produced
aerobically, there's no negative byproduct.

"When you see Lance on the climbs in the Tour, it doesn't seem
he's hurting. You know what? He really isn't. Lance is almost
entirely aerobic. When he attacks, then he goes anaerobic and
everybody else has already been there."

So he speeds away, as he did daily in the mountains, leaving his
tired rivals behind.
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